#ow

It's good to get your hands dirty a bit and to test how you see things at a given point. And it's very pleasing after writing something like 'Atonement' or 'On Chesil Beach,' which are historical, to get involved in some plausible re-enactment of the here and now. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#atonement #beach #bit #dirty #get

My father's drinking was sometimes a problem. And a great deal went unspoken. He was not particularly acute or articulate about the emotions. But he was very affectionate towards me. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#acute #affectionate #articulate #deal #drinking

My parents were keen for me to have the education they themselves never had. They weren't able to guide me towards particular books, but they encouraged me to read, which I did, randomly and compulsively. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#acute #affectionate #articulate #deal #drinking

Novelists have to be adept at controlling the flow of information, and, most crucially, they have to be in charge of the narrative. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#charge #controlling #crucially #flow #information

Now, I'm an atheist. I really don't believe for a moment that our moral sense comes from a god. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#believe #comes #god #i #moment

There is sorrow in the world, but goodness too; and goodness that is not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is. ↗

— Herman Melville

#goodness #more #sorrow #than #too

One important theme is the extent to which one can ever correct an error, especially outside any frame of religious forgiveness. All of us have done something we regret - how we manage to remove that from our conscience, or whether that's even possible, interested me. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#conscience #correct #done #error #especially

Perhaps the greatest reading pleasure has an element of self-annihilation. To be so engrossed that you barely know you exist. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#element #exist #greatest #know #perhaps

When I began I thought that literature was contained within a bubble that somehow floated above the world commented upon by newspapers. But I became more and more interested in trying to include some of that world within my work. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#became #began #bubble #commented #contained

Acting is a very personal process. It has to do with expressing your own personality, and discovering the character you're playing through your own experience - so we're all different. ↗

— Ian Mckellen

#character #different #discovering #experience #expressing